Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

Each of the four seasons we witness every year bring different photographic opportunities, but perhaps autumn is the best, when we’re blessed with the incredible changing colours of nature. In this issue’s big Canon camera techniques guide, we have 10 top tips to help you capture it all this autumn. From vibrant close-ups of leaves and striking landscapes to beautiful wildlife and creative portraits, there’s something for everyone to help lift your skill level. See page 28. Also inside, we travelled to the wild Isle of Skye in Scotland with our PhotoPlus Apprentice to meet Canon pro photographer Marcus McAdam, as he taught her how to capture epic landscape shots. We experienced all four seasons each day, but it’s this challenging (or, we could say, bonkers) weather that creates such…

CHECK THE HISTOGRAM SANDRA was new to using the histogram, so Marcus activated it on her EOS 80D by pressing the Info button while in Live View. This graph shows you all the tones in your scene, from the darkest shadows on the left to the brightest highlights on the right, and all the mid-tones in between. He explained that for a balanced exposure, you don’t want the graph to be bunched to one side, though shadow detail is easier to rescue than burnt-out highlight detail in Raw images. This means it’s best to underexpose to ensure no whites clip on the right of the histogram. STARTING SETTINGS SANDRA was familiar with her Canon’s Manual mode, which is great for taking full control over the exposures. Marcus recommended starting with…

media://hotshot-5.jpg SANDRA’S COMMENT “I had an amazing day being the PhotoPlus Apprentice and it was great to have such a mixed bag of lighting conditions on the Isle of Skye, and to see how a Canon pro tackled them. I was fully motivated the next morning to catch the elusive sunrise, so we made our way to Skye’s iconic Old Man of Storr. We left early so we had enough time to make the 45-minute hike to the summit and be up there to catch the sunrise – if there was one. To take this shot I used an aperture of f/8 for strong sharpness and focused on the Old Man of Storr pinnacles to make sure they were pin-sharp. I then used PhotoPlus’s 15-stop ND filter so I could…

A recent visit to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire resulted in this serene shot by pro photographer Jamie Simmons. Roe deer are fast and don’t want to be interrupted, so he decided to take the longest route towards them. “I used trees to block their line of sight as I approached; eventually, after around 45 minutes, I was within a few hundred feet of them. I decided to lie down and look as though I was resting on the ground myself. After about two hours, I was successfully in position, with the sun pleasingly lighting the deer from behind. “I often use the rule that my shutter speed is at least my focal length; so at 600mm, it would be over 1/500 sec. However, if I feel that there is a…

01 CREATE YOUR OWN MINI STUDIO Set up on a table where there’s enough light to see what you’re doing, but the ambient light isn’t too strong. Place some matt-black card on the table top, position your leaf subject in place, and set your Canon camera on a tripod. 02 USE LIVE VIEW TO COMPOSE It’s best to use Live View when you are tweaking the composition, as you can immediately see the effects of any compositional changes. Use the base card to move your subject, rather than adjusting the camera position. 03 REDUCED DEPTH OF FIELD With a macro lens, the depth of field is limited. If you are using a DSLR, the Depth of Field Preview button enables you to see its effect (it darkens in the viewfinder)…

To blur motion in a scene, all you require is a slow shutter speed. ‘Slow’ isn’t a very precise word when it comes to dialling in camera settings, but for a stream flowing through the woods, around ½ sec or slower should be sufficient to turn the motion of ripples and cascades into streaks and abstract shapes. You may need up to two seconds if it’s a slow-moving stream, but it’s unlikely that you would need any longer than that. The problem is, if you handhold a shot with a shutter speed this slow, camera shake turns everything, not just the water, into a blur. For that reason, a tripod is essential. You want to keep all non-moving areas of your shot pin-sharp, so only the stream is captured as…

Although sleep-deprived new parents might not agree at the time, babies grow and change incredibly fast. Before you know it, a newborn is a rampaging toddler. So, if you’re planning on arranging a baby photo shoot for friends or family, or for your own little bundle, now is the time to do it. But how do you approach a shoot like this? One technique is the baby composite. For this, we take a photo of the baby then combine it with an eye-catching backdrop. You can find lots of stunning backdrops online, such as the autumnal setup we downloaded from Adobe Stock (free with an Adobe CC subscription). Of course, if you prefer, you could always take the Anne Geddes approach and create your own intricate baby backdrops and costumes.…

01 ANGLE FROM ABOVE Window light works best over faces when it comes from slightly above, which is why a high window or skylight works well. With babies, keep in mind that if they’re on their back, ‘above’ to them might be different from the camera position, so angle them so the window is above the face. 02 TRY BACKLIGHTING As well as straight-on or side-on, you can get great light over a face by positioning the subject so that the window is behind and to one side. This way, the window backlights the subject. It’s usually best to have the face side-on in profile for this kind of portrait shot. 03 CHECK FOR CATCHLIGHTS One of the great things about shooting with window light is the lovely catchlights it…

01 SHOOT RAW Head into your Canon’s menu and make sure Image Quality is set to Raw. While it is possible to gently tweak the colour temperature of JPEG files in post, you must shoot Raw if you want free rein to alter the white balance. 02 AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE Auto White Balance is a fine everyday choice, although it’s only able to correct the colour temperature within a limited range, and often attempts to neutralize extreme lighting conditions such as golden hour or blue hour for landscape images. 03 PICK A PRESET Head to White Balance in the Shooting menu to find a list of presets for matching your scene to the corresponding preset, without having to set any Kelvin values. Familiarize yourself with them so you know…

Far too often, our best photographs live on storage drives these days, and only seem to get out for an airing on a Facebook or Instagram post. This virtual existence seems at odds with the real-world nature of photography. Transforming your photos into real, physical prints is an absolute joy – especially if you haven’t done it for some time. Just letting an inkjet printer squirt your shot into the physical realm isn’t the way to do it, though. Sure, you get a print-out – but you really want a considered print, carefully arranged and meticulously presented. For this reason, we’ve produced a set of Photoshop Actions. Not only do they resize your photo to the most convenient paper sizes at exhibition-quality resolution, but they also add a neat white margin…

01 SHADOWS/HIGHLIGHTS Shadows/Highlights gives you fine control over either end of the tonal range. Before you use it, right-click the layer and select Convert To Smart Object. This makes the command non-destructive. Now go to Image>Adjustments>Shadows/Highlights. Initially, the command just offers two Amount sliders; tick Show More Options to reveal additional controls. 02 TWEAK TONES The Shadows and Highlights fields each offer a Tone slider, which lets you expand or contract the range of tones affected; put another way, it determines what is a shadow or a highlight. Set a low Shadow Tone value, for example, and only the darkest pixels are affected, while a high value widens the range to include shadows and midtones (but not highlights). 03 IMAGE QUALITY When you want to pull detail out of tonal…

CHRIS FRAIKIN’S photographs of buildings feature strong lines, geometric shapes and striking colours, and call to mind the work of the famous abstract artist Piet Mondrian. Perhaps there’s something in the water in the Netherlands, because Fraikin and Mondrian are both natives of that country. But while Mondrian’s works were produced in a studio, the canvases that Fraikin chooses are outdoors and in the built environment: industrial buildings and factory sites that were designed to be functional, but which on closer inspection, often also have a certain amount of visual appeal hiding in plain sight. Producing photographs in this vein is something that Fraikin has only been doing seriously since 2015, and was a reaction to becoming disillusioned with photographing live music. He was looking for a new creative outlet,…

01 Canon EOS 5D Mark IV WEB: www.canon.co.uk THIS was my first professional camera body. I used it in all conditions – in the sun, in the rain, in the mud – and it has always given me great results. Even though I use it much less now after upgrading to the EOS R6, I always carry it with me as my backup body. I love the rendering of the Raw files and the quality of the images, especially for the management of colours in post-production. 02 Canon EOS R6 WEB: www.canon.co.uk I USE this EOS R6 mirrorless body the most now. Once you’ve tried eye detection AF, it’s hard to go back! The EOS R6’s animal face and eye detection is amazing for locking on to and tracking an…

If you want to convert a colour image to black and white, there are several ways to do it. Some EOS cameras have a Raw processing function in the blue Playback menu or when you press the Q button during playback. This enables you to apply the Monochrome Picture Style, and tweak the parameters in the same way as when you take a picture. For full creative freedom, though, use Raw processing software, such as Lightroom or Canon’s DPP. Click on the Monochrome or B&W button in the software to remove the colour. The image retains its colour information, though, so you can use the Hue, Saturation and Luminance (HSL) sliders in DPP or the Black & White Mix sliders in Lightroom to change the relationship between the underlying colours…

RAW BURST MODE WORKS BEST WITH FAST MEMORY CARDS With a large number of Raw images in a single file, it is best to use high-performance UHS-II SD card cards to minimize write times for long sequences. Unless your subject stays in the same place, use Servo Tracking AF for accurate focus throughout the sequence. Remember: Raw Burst mode is automatically switched off when the camera is powered off. 01 GET THE BEST SHOT FROM THE CAMERA While reviewing images on the camera, select a Raw Burst mode image and press the SET button to review each frame captured in the series. Tap on the screen or use the camera’s buttons to scroll forwards and backwards through the images. Press the SET button to select an image to extract as…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ■ Shoot and blend different focal length landscape shots ■ Oil and water abstracts ■ Use filters for stunning sunsets ■ Photoshop CC and Affinity Photo image-editing guides PLUS ALL THIS… ■ Canon Profile: Bahrain-based F1 photographer Premjith Narayanan ■ EOS tips: Five Canon gear setups for landscapes, wildlife, macro & more ■ Canon School: Low light photography ■ Super Test: The best photo printers for your home printing during the winter ISSUE 198 ON SALE 15 NOVEMBER 2022 * Content subject to change…

01 MAYBE TODAY BY KRIS ANDERSON PORTRAIT STORY – 3RD PLACE Kris’s fantastic shot is equal parts in-camera portrait and editing trickery, adding a ghostly smoke effect to look like another person is in the shot. He told us, “Sometimes when the world is too much, when depression is in control, it’s easier to turn away and just go back to sleep instead of taking on the day. When you do find the energy to get ready to face the day again, maybe today is the day you’ll overcome that voice whispering in your ear telling you how easy it would be to go back to bed and back to sleep.” Lens Canon RF 28-70mm F2L USM Exposure 1/5 sec, f/8, ISO500 02 SUCH A HIGH-PROFILE FAMILY BY ARNE BIVRIN FAMILY…

Bright, crisp autumn mornings are perfect for contre-jour shooting. Contre-jour is French; a literal translation means shooting ‘against the day’, but it’s easier to think of it as shooting into the light. Rather than having the sun behind the camera, position it so it’s pointing directly at the sun. To do this successfully, it’s best to pick the first (or last) hour of the day, when the sun is low in the sky. Metering with the sun in the shot is always tricky, but not impossible. Select your camera’s multi-pattern metering mode (Evaluative or Centre-weighted Average) and set up your composition. Try to mask some of the sun behind a tree trunk or branch, so you are slightly dampening its intensity and reducing the chance of flare. We want the…

Safety is paramount in newborn photography, and clear communication with the parents before and during a shoot makes everything go more smoothly. Choose colour schemes and props – wrapping babies is great idea as they feel secure and usually fall asleep, which means they look happy and keep still. Allow the baby to dictate how long the session lasts. Jackie uses natural light from a large window, and an AF point to focus on the eyes. She shot this stunning baby portrait with her Canon EOS 5D Mark IV at 24mm on an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM standard zoom. She used an aperture of f/4, at 1/125 sec, with an ISO of 1250.…

Delicate spider webs are a must on the to-do list of any aspiring nature photographer. Although finding a good example is relatively easy, having the right conditions for a good shot is another matter. For the strands of the web to stand out, you generally need a coating of dew to thicken the shape and add extra glisten, and some medium-to-strong backlighting. These two elements often coincide on a cloudless, early morning, but with a spray bottle and a portable light source, you can recreate the conditions any time – even in your garden on an overcast day.…

We tend to think of autumn as a sombre, moody season, but there’s a lot of fun to be had as well – especially when you introduce children and pets into your seasonal shots. At this time of year, the weather can be even more unpredictable than normal, so it’s best to have your photo subjects lined up and ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Ideally, you want dry but bright conditions. Choose your shoot location well in advance. You want somewhere with a lot of space, autumnal colour and plenty of naturally occurring props, such as piles of colourful leaves. Children should be dressed warmly, but in clothes that also enable them to scramble about and have fun, because this is the key to a successful…

01 WINDOW LIGHT Window light is ideal for baby photography. The window acts like a giant softbox for flattering, even light. A skylight like this is great when the subject is lying down because it lights them from the top. If the baby is sitting up, try using a large window or bay door to illuminate them. 02 CAMERA SETTINGS When photographing babies – or any portrait – it’s best to have a set-and-forget exposure so you can concentrate on the subject without fiddling with the camera. A good place to start with window-lit shots is Manual mode, aperture f/2.8 (or similarly wide), shutter speed ½00 sec, Auto ISO. 03 BABY SPOTTER At six months old, our tiny subject here can just about sit up, but he is rather wobbly.…

ONCE YOU get started taking window-lit baby photos, it’s difficult to stop, and you might find you end up with a whole memory card full of great portraits. A wonderful way to display these is as a collection of nine images arranged in a square. This could then be printed on a canvas or put together using a large frame and a custom-made mount. You can combine the set of images with ease in Photoshop. Begin by making a square document, then turn on the grid (View>Grid). Grab the Rectangle Shape tool and drag boxes for each image window. Once done, drag in your photos, position on layers above each shape and right-click to Create Clipping Mask. Clip each image to a shape, then fine-tune the positioning…

01 LOAD UP YOUR FREE ACTIONS Locate the Print Templates.atn file from the download (see link opposite, bottom-left) and copy it to your computer. Open Photoshop CC and go to Window> Actions to bring up the Actions panel. Click on the icon with four lines in the top-right of the panel to reveal a fly-out menu. Select Load Actions from the list; in the dialog box that pops up, navigate to your Print Templates.atn file on your computer and double-click on it. The set of Actions appears in the Actions panel in Photoshop. Click the arrow next to the name to expand the folder and show the set of 12 Actions within it. 02 TURN YOUR PHOTO INTO A PRINT Open the image you want to print, then click on…

Our eyes are naturally drawn to the lighter parts of a photo and away from darker areas, so we can manipulate the viewer’s perception of an image with subtle lightening and darkening in different parts of the frame. This ability to guide the viewer’s journey through the frame can be hugely effective when it comes to editing landscapes. Even a simple vignette can work wonders, as it darkens the corners of a frame and draws the eye into the middle towards more important details. However, with a soft, serene image like this, we don’t want to push things too far. While there are several excellent tonal tools for boosting contrast in Affinity Photo, this sort of work is often best done by hand rather than with a change in contrast.…

Based in the Netherlands, Chris Fraikin is a graphic designer by training and since 2015 has been shooting what he calls ‘archtracts’: minimalistic extracts of architectural, industrial and urban objects. He mostly roams around industrial sites in the Netherlands to discover the objects, which he then photographs in a contemplative way. Fraikin has received a Moscow International Photo Award for his work, and has also received an invitation-only portfolio presentation at the prestigious Lens Culture website, in addition to presentations in other media such as New Dawn Paper, PF and the PhotoPhore. As well as having been invited to hold a solo exhibition in Gouda in the Netherlands, Fraikin has participated in group exhibitions in Amsterdam, Italy and Portland, Oregon, and was represented at the Miami and New York Art…

While I have always been intrigued by macro photography, it was the Covid-19 lockdowns that truly brought my interest to fruition. Despite being busy with online school, I still had much more time to spare than I usually would, so I elected to spend this time developing my photography. It soon became clear that – having only access to my house and garden – macro photography was really the only viable genre in which I could engage, so I threw myself into it entirely, spending my free time learning and practising new techniques, such as focus stacking. “It was the Covid-19 lockdowns that truly brought my interest to fruition” I eventually invested in some new equipment, most notably the Raynox DCR-250 lens attachment, which enabled me to get closer than…

MANY photographers loved the look that grainy black-and-white film gave their pictures, as it added mood and a cinematic quality. The noise created by high ISOs in digital cameras isn’t quite so special, and it’s usually more preferable to add a grain effect when you process pictures instead of pushing the ISO. If your camera is set to Auto ISO, take the opportunity to limit the maximum ISO that the camera can select, via the red Shooting menu. That said, a black-and-white conversion is a great way to rescue a noisy colour picture taken at a very high ISO. PART 20 Next issue: Get set for low-light photography…

If flash is a brief burst of light, why does a Speedlite have a high-speed sync setting to freeze action? Rich Moales, Tenbury Wells BRIAN SAYS… Unfortunately, the terminology is causing confusion here. A typical Speedlite flash at low power levels is a very brief pulse of light, lasting less than 1/1000 sec, which freezes the movement of a subject. The flash fires during the period when both shutter curtains are completely open. High-speed sync mode causes the flash to emit light for a longer duration, so that it can be used with shutter speeds faster than the camera’s sync speed. Portrait photographers often like to use wide apertures to separate a subject from the background, which regularly requires a corresponding fast shutter speed for correct ambient exposure. With high-speed…

It’s common to concentrate on the external dimensions of a backpack when considering your purchase, but the internal size of the main camera compartment can be more important. Lay out your camera bodies, lenses and other accessories on a table, in the rough configuration they’ll go into your prospective backpack. Leave a little space for internal dividers, then measure the size of the overall width, depth and height. This gives a much clearer idea of whether your complete photo kit will fit into a prospective backpack, and how much space you’ll actually need. Naturally, if you’ve got a large collection of gear, you might well not want to take everything with you at the same time, which can weigh you down anyway.…

What to look for Canon EOS cameras Canon splits its EOS DSLR line-up into entry-level, enthusiast and pro ranges; the EOS 4000D is the most basic, the 850D and 77D for intermediates, the 90D and full-frame 6D Mk II for more advanced enthusiasts, while the 7D, full-frame 5D and 1D lines have pro-level features. With more expensive models, expect better handling, more robust build quality (weather-sealing and magnesium-alloy shells), more advanced features, and full-frame rather than APS-C image sensors. Over the page are full-frame EOS R mirrorless cameras, with the EOS R3 and R5 for more serious photographers, and the EOS R10 as an entry-level affordable APS-C option. Plus Canon’s smaller, older compact system, the APS-C EOS M mirrorless camera range. DSLR CAMERAS PRICES QUOTED ARE BODY-ONLY UNLESS STATED ENTRY-LEVEL…

Letter of the Month Great Super Test in issue 194 of your magazine, comparing current Canon EOS DSLRs and the EOS R Series mirrorless bodies. I found it particularly interesting because, until now, I have not seen anything in the R series to upgrade to from my EOS 90D for a sensible price. The big test article allowed a good comparison. Canon has got it right with the crop-sensor EOS R7 mirrorless, and the price is in the same region. Now I have a difficult decision to make as the EOS 90D is a brilliant camera. As always, love the magazine. Norman Hill, Southampton, Hampshire Many thanks, Norman, glad to hear you enjoyed our Super Test with our in-depth test comparisons of the current Canon EOS R and DSLRs! Note…

APPRENTICE NAME: SANDRA MACLEOD CAMERA: CANON EOS 80D SANDRA HAS been interested in photography for five years, and her first ‘proper’ camera was a Canon EOS 1300D in 2017, and has since upgraded to an EOS 80D. She lives on the Isle of Skye, so is perfectly positioned to take some amazing landscapes; she even recently went out to photograph the aurora borealis when it was visible over Skye. She shoots mostly in Manual but would like to know more about settings and equipment, as she feels it’s holding her back. CANON PRO NAME: MARCUS MCADAM CAMERA: CANON EOS 5DS R MARCUS HAS been a pro photographer for over 18 years and has lived and worked all over the world. He now resides on Scotland’s beautiful Isle of Skye, where…

CUILLIN AND THE CLOUD I’D HIKE overnight to get to this summit view for sunrise. I liked the layers and warm tones but the shot was lacking a focal point. Then, out of nowhere, a tiny cloud formed below me. It only lasted a minute or so and was then gone. THE QUIRAING THIS IS one of my favourite views of the Quiraing and one that isn’t often photographed. It’s only during the winter months when the light hits the cliff wall on the right. I always aim to get sunlight on the distant rock features with heavy cloud overhead. SGÙRR NAN GILLEAN I TOOK this to illustrate that in the UK we have mountains that can be on a par (at least visually) with the likes of the iconic…

Autumn is the season for which photography was invented. It extends from the tail end of summer greenery right through to frosty mornings, and within those boundaries, a vast range of seasonal moods and experiences is just waiting to be captured by your lens. To make the most of autumn’s awesome photogenic display, you have to be on the ball and ready to capture events as they happen, with an eye on the forecast and your camera kit at the ready. Here we suggest 10 great projects that anyone can try, regardless of your Canon gear or experience using it. Follow us on our journey through the moods of the season, and capture a portfolio of colour, energy and atmosphere. We often think of autumn as the short period between…

Autumn is a great time of year for shooting portraits, especially when you use seasonal props and colours to make your picture pop. The key is to use a wide aperture such as f/2.8 or f/4 for your shot, limiting sharp focus to the eyes and allowing any background to diffuse. A focal length of around 80mm is perfect for portraiture – it gives you a flattering perspective on your subject. Also try to keep the tones complementary; that includes hats and even your model’s makeup. USE A REFLECTOR A reflector to bounce light back on to your subject, creating catchlights in the eyes, is one of the most useful accessories you can own. The ability to move light this way and alter its quality has a dramatic effect on…

While autumn might be the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, it’s also the season of decay – as frosts, followed by storms, start to strip the trees of their leaves. Green leaves that were once supple and flexible become dried up as they start to die – but this is when they look really interesting. Hunt around the woods for a collection of leaves in various stages of decay, and you’ll soon arm yourself with enough subjects for an afternoon’s indoor still-life shoot. Give them a few days to dry out and the textures and patterns become even more obvious. You don’t need an elaborate setup, just a macro lens or a normal lens with close-up filters, and a piece of black card to sit your subject on. You…

01 ADD YOUR MORNING DEW Find a web and make sure you have enough room behind it to position a small LED lamp. Don’t worry too much about fences or other garden clutter, as these will blur out in your shot. Use a very fine mist from a garden spray to gently spray water on to the web. Take your time, because it’s easy to go too far – just a light coating is all you need. 02 BACKLIGHT WITH AN LED Frame up with your camera on a tripod. Place your LED light behind the web and to one side, so it’s out of shot. Take care not to break the web or connecting strands. In Aperture Priority mode, set a wide aperture such as f/4 or f/5.6. Focus…

When shooting fireworks, first consider the composition. If possible, and while it’s daylight, check out where the fireworks will be released. Use the recce to consider how you can give your shot context, whether that is an iconic landmark like London’s clock tower that houses Big Ben, or maybe the crowd if you’re at a local display. Put your camera on a tripod, because shutter speeds will almost certainly be longer than 10 seconds. You also need to use a remote or cable release to allow safe, vibration-free pressing of the shutter button without any delay. Focusing is tricky in the dark, so switch to manual focus and focus the lens to infinity – the infinity position should be marked on the lens barrel. Alternatively, focus on something approximately a…

SELECT AND MASK If you want to make precise cut-outs of babies, adults or any kind of subject, you need to get to grips with Select and Mask. Found under Select>Select And Mask (or via the button that appears when any selection tool is active in Photoshop), this command enables you to improve the edges of a selection. The key feature is Radius. Use the Radius slider to expand the refinement along the entire edge, or grab the Refine Edge brush tool from the toolbar on the left and paint over tricky details such as hair or fur to get a better result. 01 MATCH THE LIGHTING The key to composites is in matching the lighting. Our background image (a free Adobe Stock image, search for Newborn Digital Background Autumn…

Have you ever wondered why some photographs have a warm, yellowish hue, while others have a cooler, bluish tone? This is because light sources emit different colour temperatures. Although the human eye is very adept at neutralizing them automatically, a camera sometimes needs a helping hand, either in-camera or in post-processing, by adjusting the white balance. White balance is so called because it refers to the process of rendering a white object white, despite the colour temperature of the light source. Colour temperature is measured in Kelvins (K) – direct sunlight is roughly 5000K, for example, and our Canon EOS 6D Mark II and EOS R mirrorless cameras capture a range from 2500K (for very warm light sources) to 10,000K (for very cool light sources). But you don’t need to…

01 CAMERA AND LENS All Canon cameras can take brilliant studio portraits as you don’t need features like fast burst rates or high ISO performance here. You can also get good results with a kit lens, although many pros favour 50mm or 85mm prime lenses for portraiture. 02 STUDIO FLASH HEAD These come in different models with varying flash power; some models are also powered by battery packs, making them more portable. Take note of the flash mount yours uses, as you need to get modifiers in the same mount to fit it. 03 LIGHT STAND These usually don’t break the bank and are collapsible, so you can save space in your studio, too. You attach your flash head to the top and then adjust the height of your light…

MANY studio flash heads have a modelling lamp, which while not as bright as a flash, outputs light so that you can see the effect that your light modifiers are having, then you can then move the lights into the perfect position. CATCHLIGHTS are created from the key light being reflected in your model’s eye, and take the shape of whatever modifier is attached to it. In this shot, you can see the beauty-dish-shaped key light as well as the reflector below.…

The Shadows/Highlights command is one of the most useful tonal tools on offer in Photoshop – but to get the most out of it, you need to master a few simple settings. Initially, the tool offers two simple sliders: one lets you lift the shadows, while the other darkens the highlights. However, hidden away is a wealth of other options that give you a fine degree of control over your scene’s shadows and highlights. The command can be used on all kinds of photos, but it comes into its own with landscapes. Like our Icelandic seascape here, landscapes are often dominated by very bright and very dark tones, as skies tend to be lighter than the land below. This makes it tricky to achieve a balanced exposure, because the contrast…

01 DODGE THE BUILDINGS Open the image, then press Cmd/Ctrl+J to copy the layer. Grab the Dodge tool, set the range to Highlights in the options and hit 1 for 10% strength, then zoom in and paint over the ridges in the building to subtly lift them. Use the] and [keys to resize the brush tip. 02 BURN THE SHADOWS Switch to the Burn tool and set the range to Shadows, again with strength 10%, then paint to darken the shadow sides of the buildings and add definition to clouds. The dodging and burning may shift colours, so set Layer Blend Mode to Luminosity to prevent this. 03 TIDY THE SAND Click the new pixel layer icon in the Layers panel to make a new empty layer, then grab the…

I’ve been to Iceland a handful of times but was yet to see the northern lights. In November last year, I was to venture there again and hoped it would be fifth time lucky. After travelling north-west, we headed south down the eastern region of Iceland to see incredible locations like Skógafoss, Jökulsárlón and Reynisfjara. Jökulsárlón, a glacier lagoon, is a sight to behold – the icebergs are bluer than blue. It’s a calming experience, but don’t be fooled – that lagoon is the best part of 250 metres deep. While seemingly still, the icebergs are moving, so a shorter exposure is better for sharp shots. Immediately on the other side of the small village of Vik, lies the awesome beach of Reynisfjara. Roughly eight kilometres long, this black sand…

Although it’s better to shoot in Raw and convert to mono later, it’s a good idea to set your Canon camera to its Monochrome Picture Style. One of the challenges of shooting in black and white is trying to envisage how a scene will look without colour, but with Monochrome activated, you get a preview image on the Live View display – and in the viewfinder if you’re shooting with a mirrorless EOS. You can set the Picture Style in the red Shooting menu, on the Quick Control screen, or via a shortcut button on some cameras. The preview you see on the camera might be in black and white, but the Raw file saved to the memory card contains all the colour information. This is because the image displayed…

Although the sliders and filter options in the Monochrome Picture Style let you tweak the contrast and lift a shot, you can create a custom black-and-white Picture Style more to your taste using Canon’s free Picture Style Editor software. The software, which can be downloaded from Canon’s website, gives you a set of HSL controls that you can use to target individual colours, desaturate them, then make them lighter or darker. You need to drag a Canon Raw file into the interface to work on, but you don’t create and save a JPEG version – you just use it to cook up a new Picture Style recipe. It’s a three-step process: make some basic adjustments, followed by two stages of colour adjustments. Once you’re happy, you can save the recipe…

The EOS R7 and EOS R10 inherited elements of the AF from the pro EOS R3, and this means that when set to Servo AF, the AF point might move from where the photographer positioned it. The reason is that subject tracking is the default setting for these cameras, so the location of the AF point is the initial section of the frame to be examined to locate the subject. Once located, the subject is tracked by moving and changing the AF frame if the subject or camera moves. This is different from the other EOS cameras, where a single AF point would not be moved by the camera to track a subject. This new tracking behaviour is extremely useful when photographing groups of similar subjects. When shooting team sports,…

A twist in the photo backpack plot comes in the shape of split photo/daypacks, which divide the main internal compartment into two sections. The lower one is generally dedicated to photo kit, while the upper section can be used for personal paraphernalia. The separating partition can often be removed. This can be handy if, for example, you want to stow a camera body with a particularly long lens fitted. In some split backpacks, dividers can be added or moved, so you can reconfigure the space for additional photo items or a more general space. The Vanguard Veo Active goes a step further, with an easily removable camera compartment that sits within the main section, so it can transition from photo to regular backpack in seconds.…

Canon’s £13,400 telephoto lens is a wildlife photography bazooka The Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM is an absolute bazooka of a lens – and a pro powerhouse for wildlife photography. Learn more on our website DigitalCameraWorld.com via quick link bit.ly/rf600 The Canon EOS R7 is a great camera… that’s convinced me APS-C is not for me What happened when we got the opportunity to take the Canon EOS R7 and long RF lenses on a whale-watching cruise in Sydney? Read more on our site DigitalCameraWorld.com via quick link bit.ly/r7_whales Neon shapes and collodion wet plates – this is the British Photography Awards The 100% non-profit competition acts as a platform to showcase photographers’ work while raising money for charity. Learn more on our website DigitalCameraWorld.com via quick link bit.ly/dcw_brits…